To put it simply, Dakar 18 makes me want to eat a three-pound bag of sand rather than play any more of what this game has to offer. In fact, this game manages to do almost everything pretty poorly.
Interesting gameplay mechanics hampered by either poor execution or poor implementation? Check. Bland environments with outdated graphics for the time of release and budget? Oh course! Obnoxious sound design? You bet!
While there are some good ideas for elements that could make Dakar 18 a unique experience in the oversaturated genre of pseudo-realistic offroad racing games, everything feels so disconnected that almost nothing works.
The voice acting and constant instructions are very annoying, but if you turn them off, chances are you'll get lost in the vacuous expanse of nothing that makes up almost every level. And while there is a decent selection of vehicles available in the game, they all feel way to similar and blend together as a result.
At the end of the day this is just one of those games I picked up on digital sale for somewhere around $2 when my friends and I were having a competition to see who could rack up the most gamerscore in a month and, honestly, it wasn't even that good for that.
Avoid at all costs.